Why Gukesh Dommaraju is the next big star of chess
The 17-year-old is not only the youngest ever to win the prestigious FIDE Candidates tournament but also only the second Indian to do so
“I cannot imagine him winning the Candidates... I think he will certainly win at least a couple of games, but will have some fairly bad losses as well. I don’t think he will do poorly, but I don’t think he will do too well either. He’s not quite ready yet to make the leap. It’s more likely that he has a bad event.” That’s what grandmaster and five-time world champion Magnus Carlsen had to say about Indian grandmaster Gukesh Dommaraju before the FIDE Candidates 2024 tournament began in Toronto.
The 17-year-old chess prodigy from Chennai proved Carlsen wrong and how. Not only did Gukesh become the youngest ever to win the prestigious, and one of the toughest, tournament, but he also is only the second Indian—after Viswanathan Anand no less—to win it.
The victory gives Gukesh the opportunity to fulfil his dream—be a world champion. His idol and former world champion, Anand, took to X to congratulate the youngster. “I’m personally very proud of how you played and handled the tough situations,” wrote Anand whose WestBridge Anand Chess Academy Gukesh is a part of.
In Toronto, Gukesh displayed maturity, calculation skills and nerves of steel belying his age through the course of 14 matches: he won five, drew eight and lost just one. By the end of three weeks, it was the youngest participant of the eight-member field who had made the biggest impression and added to his fan club. In doing so, Gukesh is now the Indian No. 1 with a world ranking of six.
There were other Indians—Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa and Vidit Gujrathi—too in the fray at Candidates, the winner of which gets to challenge world champion Ding Liren of China in a match.
Gukesh, though, from the start appeared to be in no mood to make Carlsen’s prediction come true. That was until he shockingly lost to Iran-born French grandmaster Alireza Firouzja in round seven. But it would end up being, in his own words, a “turning point” and one that would galvanise him. “Even though I just had a painful loss, I was feeling at my absolute best [on the rest day]. Maybe this loss gave me so much motivation,” Gukesh said at the press conference after winning the tournament.
Born to a doctor father and a microbiologist mother, Gukesh’s prowess on the chess board was identified early on. It’s why at the age of 11, his answer to the standard question, ‘What do you want to do when you grow up?’, was a matter-of-fact “become the youngest world chess champion”.
In 2019, he broke Praggnanandhaa’s record to become the youngest Indian player to become a grandmaster. A practitioner of meditation and yoga, his breakthrough year was 2023. Gukesh rose on the scene at the Chess Olympiad held in Chennai last year. In September, he overtook Anand as India No. 1, the first to do so in 37 years. Later that year, he reached the World Cup quarterfinals, losing to World No. 1 and eventual winner Carlsen.
Gukesh’s rise in the sport comes at one of the most prolific periods in Indian chess, which has seen a host of wunderkinds. They include Praggnanandhaa, Arjun Erigaisi and Nihal Sarin, with the former two part of the silver-medal winning Asian Games squad and the elite 2700-rating club along with Gukesh. Praggnanandhaa reaching the finals of the World Cup and Gukesh’s win at the Candidates offer proof that this is indeed the golden generation of chess in India.
Regardless of the result of the impending contest against Ding, Gukesh has already etched his name in the history books. While “relieved and happy”, the teenager has the self-belief to make more history: be the youngest world champion. “I surely have trust in myself. If I do all the right things, I surely can make it [be a world champion],” the 17-year-old had told The Indian Express last year. With such a mindset, his Chinese counterpart knows he has a battle up his sleeve. Never mind that it comes from someone who is still not old enough to vote.
By Suhani Singh, India Today, April 22, 2024
comment:
p_commentcount